New Delhi

A Delhi-NCR hospital has claimed to have performed the region's first implantation of the Pivot Extend System, a transcatheter device used to treat severe tricuspid regurgitation (leaky heart valve), on a 35-year-old woman from Trinidad and Tobago suffering from advanced right heart failure.

Fortis Memorial Research Institute (FMRI), Gurugram, said the procedure was carried out after conventional minimally invasive treatment options were found to be unsuitable because of the patient's cardiac anatomy.

The hospital said the implantation was also the first use of the device in an international patient in India and only the third reported implantation of the device in the country.

According to the hospital, the patient had been suffering from progressively worsening breathlessness, swelling in the legs and abdomen, and symptoms of advanced heart failure for nearly three years.

"Investigations revealed severe tricuspid valve leakage, significantly weakened heart function and a history of specialised pacemaker implantation around eight to ten years ago," doctors said.

The hospital further added that a heart transplant was initially considered the only definitive treatment, but her clinical condition and cardiac anatomy made her unsuitable for conventional minimally invasive procedures.

It said special permission was obtained from the Government of India to import the device before it was implanted on July 24 after replacement of her pacemaker pulse generator two days earlier.

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A follow-up echocardiogram showed that the device reduced the severity of the valve leakage from torrential to moderate, following which the patient was discharged in a stable condition on medical therapy with scheduled follow-up, the hospital said.